Where the HECK is "X"?

Over the past few weeks, and few months in some cases, I may seem to have fallen off the edge of the world. I know in some cases I seem to be completely 'missing' these days, but that's an illusion and I'm actually still hanging around!

I thought I should write an article here that eXplains what's been going on with me and my artwork, and why I appear to have gone underground.

MISTERX.CA

I've been uploading my images here less often and have been writing less blog posts than before. This is the main reason I'm writing THIS right now, to eXplain my apparent loss of time that is spent here. I'm sure it appears that I've somehow lost interest in this website.

This couldn't be further from the truth! I'm just as interested in this website as ever before, but due to circumstances beyond my control, (sort of), I just don't have the same amount of images to post, nor the same amount of time to write.

This is due to the way I'm creating right now. Many, if not most of my creations, now take me HOURS to create, and in some cases even take DAYS before they are complete. I only have so much time to spend on the internet, so now I'm spending so much of it on my creations, other things (like this site) get less of my time.

As I'm sure you can imagine, writing these blog posts can be very time consuming, so when it comes to choosing whether to write or create an image, I'm going to choose making an image every time! After all, I'm an ARTIST, not a WRITER!

And my images still get uploaded here at least once a week, but because they can take me so much longer to make than before, I just don't have as many to publish here as I did in the past. That being said, I believe the images I'm currently making are far SUPERIOR to the images I was making before, so the trade off is well worth it to me.

In fact, the new images I'm making have helped me decide to retire the front page images into ColleXion 3 soon, and start on ColleXion 4, as I feel these new creations are an important part of my AI art evolution.

DEEP DREAM GENERATOR

As of this writing I haven't published anything publicly at DDG for almost 3 months, so I'm sure folks think I've completely given up on the place. THIS IS NOT TRUE!

I still love DDG and I visit it several times EVERY SINGLE DAY! I still use the tools there in many of my creations, and I especially LOVE the AI Upscaler, which I find superior to other AI website's versions of this tool!

The only reason I haven't published at DDG recently is because every time I do it causes me anXiety, and who wants to feel anXious when creating? Not me.

Several times now I've decided I'm going to publish something there. I get my artwork all set up, add my watermark, spend the points on rendering the image in Deep Style, but when I go to click the 'Make it public' button, I chicken out!

That's when I remember that I have to then go use up my 500 likes, will then be checking up on my work all day to see how many likes I got in return, how much I DISLIKE how my artwork will be displayed using Deep Style, and how REDICULOUS it is that Inspiration Points are part of the popularity algorithm now.

Ummm, no thanks!

I know it's silly to feel this way, and it shouldn't matter how many likes a person gets, but this is the way DDG has made the website, and I can't HELP how I feel because of it. And, as a result, like many many others, I just don't bother to publish publicly there now. This is the way they want it, so this is the way it is.

That's not to say that I'll NEVER publish there again, I probably will. But I really have to be in the mood to do so now, and I guess that mood hasn't hit me for 3 months!

PLAYGROUND.COM

This is where I'm currently doing the majority of my work right now. I can spend hours there while generating a single image. Afterward, I often take my picture back over to DDG to fine tune it with one of their presets or the AI Upscaler.

I'd invite you to come look at my work at Playground, but I don't publish anything there publicly either! It's just a place where I do my artistic 'work', and I have no desire to get to know another AI art community, or get frustrated by what Playground may be doing with its own algorithms or display options! But it's a wonderful place to work 'underground' as their platform really suits my artistic needs.

Just recently they made a big change to the site where they've gotten heavily involved in merchandise. When you go to Playground.com, it takes you to this new merchandise page instead of their artist gallery, so I'm a little concerned about if I'll be able to continue my work there in the future, or if they'll just focus on selling assorted crap, but we'll wait and see how it all pans out.

You can still visit the artist's gallery there though by adding a "/feed" to the end of their URL.

FACEBOOK

I don't really spend much time on Facebook these days either. Recently I've only been making about 3-4 posts per week. This is also mostly due to my long creation process, as my artwork is my main focus there.

Other things about the place have really pissed me off though. A while back I got thrown into Facebook Jail for talking about drugs! I got an advertisement about buying 'magic mushrooms' online. I was astonished by this, as they are illegal here, so I made a post about it, and in the post I made I mentioned 'magic mushrooms'. Well, that set off their stupid algorithms and I was placed in jail, for saying the exact same thing that they were advertising to me! I tried to fight their decision, but it was impossible because you 'talk' to their computers and not people.

Afterward, my posts took a serious hit. I used to get 30 likes or so on them, now I'm lucky if I get half that amount. People just don't see them anymore.

I now know what "F" in Facebook stands for.

LUNAPIC.COM

I am totally addicted to this place and I use it for every single piece I publish now. Sometimes I think I spend as much time there editing my stuff as I do at Playground and DDG creating it!

The ONLY tool I use there is their "smart object removal' which can be found under the 'edit' tab. They have tons of other tools, I just haven't gotten around to trying any of them yet.

But seriously folks, don't spend money on editing any of your work until you've tried doing it at Lunapic first. You can thank me later! ;)

THE TIME CONSUMING ARTWORK

I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but see this image below? It took me five days to make....FIVE DAYS!!!